Friday, July 21, 2017

Detroit's Deadliest Days

50 years ago, in July 1967, a riot broke out in Detroit which lasted five days. By the time the riot ended 43 people were dead, 1,189 were injured, over 7,200 people had been arrested and more than 2,000 buildings had been destroyed.

To mark the 50th anniversary of the 1967 Detroit Riot the Detroit News has released a map exploring every single one of the 43 deaths that occurred during the riot. The map doesn't attempt to explain the causes of the riot or how it progressed. It just attempts to explain who died, where they died and how.

Five Deadly Days in Detroit uses Carto's Odyssey.js story map format to provide a simple chronological account of what happened in Detroit. The basemap used for the story map is a United States Geological Survey map from 1968. As you scroll through Five Deadly Days in Detroit the map pans to the location where one of the 43 people were killed. The text beneath the map provides an account of who died and how they were killed. This text is illustrated with vintage images from the Detroit News coverage of the riot in 1967.